I realized that my article from last fall on self-hosting on the NAS is now outdated. Not only am I not hosting apps on my NAS anymore, but I'm not even using those apps anymore. I started using Pikapod to host my RSS and read-it-later apps. Pikapod hosts a lot of open source apps of all types and needs.

I stopped hosting on my NAS simply because things got really slow, especially Wallabag. It even affected my normal NAS operations of copying and hosting files, which is really its main job for me. I stumbled upon Pikapod from the Installer newsletter and I decided to give it a shot. Ironically, they didn't have Selfoss as an option, so I did some research and picked FreshRSS. Also, I decided that there were things about Wallabag I didn't really like, and after some searching, I decided to choose Readeck, and I've been very happy with both.

Both of my apps are very fast, and I pay under $5/month to host both of them. Pikapod basically takes a Docker container and starts it up – though they don't give you any real details on how the apps run.

Not everything has been golden. I wanted to install some plugins in FreshRSS, so I had to temporarily turn on an SFTP connection to that pod and move the files up there. The only way to make your own personal backup of your apps (which you should do) is to use S3 on AWS. You have to dedicate a whole bucket to the backups, which isn't that bad though it gives you more to manage in your AWS environment. But the cost of the S3 usage is negligible.

As far as URL goes… you can use their randomly-generated URL or add your own cname to the pod. I like to start the pod up with the random name and then put in my cname when it's ready – yes you can change the URL after it's running.

There's no CLI or anything like that on your host apps, which is both good and bad considering I tend to make trouble if I'm given shell access. So, for me, the limitations are the feature: just enough control, not enough rope to hang myself.

The pods themselves work really well. Overall I'm really happy. In the future I'll cover FreshRSS and Readeck in more depth but I felt Pikapod needed a post in and of itself. If you need CLI access or absolute complete control, this isn't for you. If you want open-source tools that stay running, Pikapod is hard to beat.